|
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
75 members (bluebilly, accordeur, BillS728, aphexdisklavier, bobrunyan, anotherscott, AaronSF, apianostudent, 16 invisible),
2,119
guests, and
357
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868
9000 Post Club Member
|
OP
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868 |
Originally posted by wr: Look, the answer to the "why" question is going to be out-and-out fiction, since there's reasonable doubt that the resemblance is even a real quote, much less a deliberate one. Make up whatever you want. Write a novel. But here's the another "why" question: why should anyone care, if none of this sheds any light on anything, because there's no evidence that any of it is real, and therefore (since so far you shown us zero actual evidence otherwise), it has to remain in the realm of meaningless coincidence?
A few years back I was playing through a Mendelssohn piece and suddenly realized there was a Tchaikovsky orchestral piece that was very close to it, not only in the notes themselves, but also in the general tone. I think the resemblance is far more pronounced than the similarities in this Chopin/Brahms thing you are harping on. But what of it? The composers are long dead. Whether Tchaikovsky was consciously modeling on or even plagiarizing the Mendelssohn seems pretty inconsequential. So what if he was? It's not as if it's worth spending the rest of my life combing through every tidbit of information that might be possibly relevant to see if the resemblance was conscious or not. It just doesn't matter that much, especially in light of the well-known fact that many composers frequently do consciously model their writing after other composers, and steal and borrow as much as they think they can get away with. It's not as if they are about to provide a list all of their influences for any given work (although sometimes they point some out, as Ravel did with his G major concerto). They may not even remember who they borrowed from, for that matter. I'm curious, and that's enough justification for me to care about it and wonder about it. I realize not everyone is interested in such things, but that's no reason why *I* shouldn't be interested.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759 |
Pianojerome, please do tell us about the Scarlatti reference in Brahms whenever you can. Is it from one of Brahms's Lieder?
Die Krebs gehn zurucke, Die Stockfisch bleiben dicke, Die Karpfen viel fressen, Die Predigt vergessen.
Die Predigt hat g'fallen. Sie bleiben wie alle.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868
9000 Post Club Member
|
OP
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868 |
Originally posted by Janus Sachs: Pianojerome, please do tell us about the Scarlatti reference in Brahms whenever you can. Is it from one of Brahms's Lieder? I don't remember where it is. I just wrote to my musicology professor to see if he remembers the title -- we took a little field trip a few weeks ago to the home of a retired professor here who collects old music scores, and he showed us the score where Brahms had written in Scarlatti's name. I'll let you know as soon as I hear a response.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 3,990
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 3,990 |
Originally posted by Auntie Lynn: Hey, my darlings...remember that old tune "How Dry I Am..."? Well the Barlow/Morgenstern Dictionary of Musical Themes lists no less than 83 tunes that start off in that fashion and the Dictionary of Opera and Song Themes lists no less than 73...blame it on the Common Practice Period (thanks Mr. Piston).
I once had some idiot tell me that he though Begin the Beguine and Silent Night sounded alike...go figure... "How dry I am" even shows up in Beethoven's Op. 10 No. 3 first movement. Think about it when you hear the opening theme, and then how it's repeated in the closing of the first half of the first movement. John
Current works in progress:
Beethoven Sonata Op. 10 No. 2 in F, Haydn Sonata Hoboken XVI:41, Bach French Suite No. 5 in G BWV 816
Current instruments: Schimmel-Vogel 177T grand, Roland LX-17 digital, and John Lyon unfretted Saxon clavichord.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759 |
Originally posted by John Citron: Originally posted by Auntie Lynn: [b] Hey, my darlings...remember that old tune "How Dry I Am..."? Well the Barlow/Morgenstern Dictionary of Musical Themes lists no less than 83 tunes that start off in that fashion and the Dictionary of Opera and Song Themes lists no less than 73...blame it on the Common Practice Period (thanks Mr. Piston).
I once had some idiot tell me that he though Begin the Beguine and Silent Night sounded alike...go figure... "How dry I am" even shows up in Beethoven's Op. 10 No. 3 first movement. Think about it when you hear the opening theme, and then how it's repeated in the closing of the first half of the first movement.
John [/b]Other interesting uses of "How Dry I am" as pointed out in Bernstein's "Infinite Variety of Music" lecture: Beethoven: Second Symphony, primary theme of second movement Brahms: First Piano Concerto, second subject of first movement Strauss: Death and Transfiguration, "transfiguration" theme Shostakovich: Fifth Symphony, primary theme of last movement I wish I can remember the other ones Bernstein pointed out. Then of course pianojerome pointed out recently the middle section of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu, with the addition of an upper neighbour scale degree 6 (which in turn resembles a passage from the F minor Nocturne).
Die Krebs gehn zurucke, Die Stockfisch bleiben dicke, Die Karpfen viel fressen, Die Predigt vergessen.
Die Predigt hat g'fallen. Sie bleiben wie alle.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047 |
I agree. "Why?" is a very pertinent question, regardless of the example Sam chooses to cite. What are the intentionst of a composer, poet, or a photographer deliberately quoting another artist? It's not so much a musical question as one that gets at the general human condition.
Tomasino
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do so with all thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,338
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,338 |
I personally think it's quite possible to enjoy a piece (such as the Chopin) for it's beautiful simplicity without resorting to an unecesarry complication of it. The biggest problem I have when I take the plunge to write a composition (which is rare, I must admit) is to keep the original idea simple until it evolves. There is always the temptation, when looking back to try and improve the original idea (which is not always a bad idea) but this usually results in a very complicated original idea that has great trouble evolving later and has lost some of it's charm in the process - the original elements that made it to nice become hazy with the added elements and the original idea is lost amid the details. If we assume that Brahms 'stole' Chopin's idea to "improve" it, then we must also wonder whether it is an actual improvement when the 2 pieces are set side by side. Complicating the simple does not always make for a more pleasing sound. Sure, it may be full of technical and musical "wows" but in the end, only the analyzer will appreciate it IF the original simple idea is lost. Mozart is fine as he is - his ideas are beautiful. Haydn's ideas (if we compare the piano sonatas) become a little more technically advanced in areas and feature many musical jokes and jests, and while brilliant, they lack the simple charm that Mozart had. There are, of course, exceptions but I think most people will see what I mean. Generally, Mozart is much more highly regarded for his simplicity - make one wrong note on your piano and the gig is up and Mozart cringes in his makeshift grave. Whether Brahms thought to improve on Chopin is a question I can't answer, but my personal opinion is that he was not trying to improve it as a means of asserting his mastery of composition. I tend to think that Brahms might just have been inspired by the piece. Look at Rachmaninoff's variations on Chopin's prelude. Is he trying to say he is better than Chopin and that Chopin should be kicked for not elaborating more? No, I doubt it. Chopin's prelude is fine without Rachmaninoff's variations - in fact, it's brilliant in it's simplicity. Rachmaninoff just loved that piece so much he couldn't help showing off with it. It has been mentioned before that if we start chasing themes borrowed, stolen, adored by composers the chase will never end. With enough time on our hands, we could attribute almost any musical idea to someone's elses muse....
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868
9000 Post Club Member
|
OP
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868 |
Originally posted by pianojerome: Originally posted by Janus Sachs: [b] Pianojerome, please do tell us about the Scarlatti reference in Brahms whenever you can. Is it from one of Brahms's Lieder? I don't remember where it is. I just wrote to my musicology professor to see if he remembers the title -- we took a little field trip a few weeks ago to the home of a retired professor here who collects old music scores, and he showed us the score where Brahms had written in Scarlatti's name. I'll let you know as soon as I hear a response. [/b]It is indeed from the lieder -- "Unuberwindlich" Op. 72 No. 5.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759
1000 Post Club Member
|
1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,759 |
Thanks, pianojerome! Will explore...
Die Krebs gehn zurucke, Die Stockfisch bleiben dicke, Die Karpfen viel fressen, Die Predigt vergessen.
Die Predigt hat g'fallen. Sie bleiben wie alle.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395
9000 Post Club Member
|
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395 |
Originally posted by pianojerome: I'm curious, and that's enough justification for me to care about it and wonder about it. I realize not everyone is interested in such things, but that's no reason why *I* shouldn't be interested. Your curiosity and interest may be admirable, but accepting your own self-generated fantasies as if they are real answers to "why" is less so. That is unless you are practicing to be a professional fiction writer, or political speech-writer.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047 |
Sam gives one possible answer to "why?". That's all. There's nothing didactic in it. It's all speculation. It pretends to nothing more.
Tomasino
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do so with all thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395
9000 Post Club Member
|
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395 |
Originally posted by tomasino: Sam gives one possible answer to "why?". That's all. There's nothing didactic in it. It's all speculation. It pretends to nothing more.
Tomasino It reads to me as if it does pretend to something more, particularly the initial assertion that the resemblance is a conscious and deliberate "plagiarism" by Brahms. If I thought he thought it was pure fantasy and nothing more, I would react differently.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 6,305
6000 Post Club Member
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 6,305 |
Originally posted by pianojerome: But when I see that Brahms is quoting another composer in such a way, I can't help but wonder why. [1] You are assuming that it is a quote and not an accidental co-incidence of notes. I think not all of us agree with that assumption. [2] You ask "why?" One could equally ask "Why not?"
Du holde Kunst...
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868
9000 Post Club Member
|
OP
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868 |
Originally posted by wr: Originally posted by tomasino: [b] Sam gives one possible answer to "why?". That's all. There's nothing didactic in it. It's all speculation. It pretends to nothing more.
Tomasino It reads to me as if it does pretend to something more, particularly the initial assertion that the resemblance is a conscious and deliberate "plagiarism" by Brahms. If I thought he thought it was pure fantasy and nothing more, I would react differently. [/b]from my first post in this thread: I'd like your opinion on a different idea.... The key point here is that obviously we don't know what Brahms was thinking, but we can certainly guess! also from my first post: So what do you think? Possible? and from my third post: That said, it's entirely plausible that it was entirely subconscious and, most clearly, in my sixth post: So I'm not saying that this is necessarily what Brahms was thinking in his head, because of course I don't know what he was thinking -- but it's one idea to understanding the question, "why". There's nothing dogmatic here -- I've not presented this as the absolute truth, as something that I am convinced is what Brahms was really thinking. To the contrary, I tried to make it clear numerous times that this is merely a possibility -- but a possibility rooted in study of the two scores and of Brahms's relationship to past composers, including Chopin, and also in the study of an article by an established academic on the very subject of Brahms quoting Chopin in many pieces. I could be wrong. I often am. But just because we can't (obviously) get inside someone's head to know what he was thinking, does not mean that we cannot make educated guesses.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868
9000 Post Club Member
|
OP
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 9,868 |
Originally posted by currawong: Originally posted by pianojerome: [b]But when I see that Brahms is quoting another composer in such a way, I can't help but wonder why. [1] You are assuming that it is a quote and not an accidental co-incidence of notes. I think not all of us agree with that assumption.
[2] You ask "why?" One could equally ask "Why not?" [/b][1] Yes, I am fairly certain that it is a quote and not an accidental co-incidence of notes. Of course I could be wrong -- but the similarities are just too accurate and diverse, and Brahms's familiarity with Chopin's music too intimate for me to readily accept that it was a mere coincidence. As to why he quoted -- I just gave one idea, but of course I do not know for certain if it's the right idea. [2] Good question. If an author did something like this, s/he'd be slammed for plagiarism. But it seems that since so many great composers have done this, it's okay for music. Different rules for different games.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395
9000 Post Club Member
|
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047 |
To me, Sam's question isn't about musical issues. Rather, it's about the nature of flattery: what complex of emotions and private thoughts are we experiencing when we compliment our mother-in-law on her new dress? That's one part of the question.
The other is of a nearly religious nature: what happens when it is suggested to a group of worshipers, that a deity--in Sam's example, Johannes Brahms--is merely human, and prone to the same foibles and tomfoolery as the rest of us?
Tomasino
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do so with all thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 2,230
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 2,230 |
Janus Sachs, You seem to like crude caricatures about Wagner, almost as much as you like all sorts of wriggling. I'd like to see you back your statements up with references to primary sources. Let's start with: Wagner's dismissal of Brahms as a "Jewish czardas player." I found this from Alex Ross's blog: "It is hard to judge who was more responsible for the famous quarrel between [Wagner and Brahms]. Brahms fueled the fire in 1860 by signing a manifesto against the 'music of the future,' which protested 'new and outlandish theories contrary to the very nature of music.' But Avins points out that Wagner made a conciliatory gesture toward Brahms several years after that episode, inviting him to a party in Vienna. It was Brahms's possibly calculated contact with Mathilde Wesendonck, the woman who inspired Tristan, that finally incited Wagner to his usual spewing of bile. By 1879, Brahms was being attacked in the pages of the Bayreuther Blätter for dressing himself up as a 'Jewish czardas player.'" Ross isn't the most objective commentator one can find ("usual spewing of bile"), but the above paragraph seems to suggest that Wagner didn't, in fact, call Brahms a Jewish czardas player, let alone dismiss him as one. So who's the troll now? Perhaps you should be more careful about spreading insubstantial slander, when there is someone around who actually knows something about the subject, or bothers to find out.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395
9000 Post Club Member
|
9000 Post Club Member
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 9,395 |
Originally posted by tomasino: To me, Sam's question isn't about musical issues. Rather, it's about the nature of flattery: what complex of emotions and private thoughts are we experiencing when we compliment our mother-in-law on her new dress? That's one part of the question.
The other is of a nearly religious nature: what happens when it is suggested to a group of worshipers, that a deity--in Sam's example, Johannes Brahms--is merely human, and prone to the same foibles and tomfoolery as the rest of us?
Tomasino I'm not following you on the flattery idea, since Chopin would never have heard the Brahms in order to be flattered (or more likely, not) by it. Or is that what you meant? Sorry, I just didn't get it. The other idea, that this is about Brahms having some ordinary human motivations driving a composition, at least in part, in opposition to some idealized version of him that would never do such a thing, makes more sense to me, at least as an idea. But shouldn't we get some information about Brahms' character to back that up? From what little I know about him, he seems to have been a pretty unusual human being. I need to read the Swafford biography, I think. This thread reminded me of a famous anecdote in which a listener, after the premiere of a new Brahms work, remarks to Brahms that there was a resemblance of one of Brahms' themes to a theme of Beethoven's, and Brahms retorted, "Any idiot can see that." And it occurred to me that even if Brahms hadn't noticed the resemblance himself until that very moment that someone else pointed it out to him, he still might have pretended that it was totally obvious. At any rate, I've read that he was well-known for his unremittingly sharp and disparaging tongue (sort of like some other composers - what is it about them, anyway?).
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047
2000 Post Club Member
|
2000 Post Club Member
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 2,047 |
Originally posted by tomasino:
Sam's question . . . "is about the nature of flattery: what complex of emotions and private thoughts are we experiencing when we compliment our mother-in-law on her new dress?"
wr's response to Tomasino:
"I'm not following you on the flattery idea, since Chopin would never have heard the Brahms in order to be flattered . . ."
Here's a little rewrite: "What complex of emotions and private thoughts are we experiencing when we eulogize our mother-in-law lying dead in her casket?"
Tomasino
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do so with all thy might." Ecclesiastes 9:10
|
|
|
|
|
|
Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
|
Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,408
Posts3,349,457
Members111,637
|
Most Online15,252 Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|